Green and Blue
by Mariphasa Hecatene
Summary: Piper runs into trouble on an uncharted terra, and it's Stork and the Condor to the rescue! Totally safe for all ages, gently implied SxP romance.


My very first Storm Hawks fic. Nothing profound, just a little rescue adventure, completely worksafe and kidsafe. w00t for Merb piloting heroics;slightly implied Stork-Piper lurve. ) _Standard disclaimer: _I do not own any of the Storm Hawks characters, which belong to Asaph Fipke and Nerd Corps 2007-to-ever; I'm just taking them for a little spin and I'll bring 'em back unhurt, so help me.

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**_"Green and Blue"_** --completed 8-5-07, edited 8-19

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Aerrow lowered the binoculars and closed his eyes. No one wanted to say so, but things were beginning to look bad. 

It was three and a half hours since Piper had taken her heliscooter down to that uncharted, snow-covered terra to check out an intriguing-looking crystal outcropping. She'd radioed in to report her safe landing, and that was that. A fast-moving snowstorm was looming on the horizon, and when after two hours they'd had no word, Aerrow had decided it was time to go and find her. That, however, hadn't been so simple. He and Finn had found her ride, parked in the shelter of a ridge and neatly tacked down with an ice anchor, obviously as she'd left it; found her tracks as she'd climbed the ridge, and even found rock and crystal flakes where she'd collected samples of the strange, shimmering blue mineral. But Piper's tracks came partway back, were suddenly smeared out by the tracks of something a lot bigger, and—nothing else. They'd tried to follow the big, heavy prints, but the snowstorm had first wiped out the trail and then dropped flight visibility to zero, and they'd retreated to the Condor in an advanced state of worry.

At least the storm seemed to have run its course. "How could anything as big as that just disappear?" Finn wondered aloud, as Aerrow went back to scanning the surface.

"This terra is probably a labyrinth of ice caves," pointed out Stork, studying the surface through the Condor's periscopes while holding the ship in reconnaissance orbit. ( In his distracted way, he seemed more anxious than the rest of them put together, Aerrow thought —but then, Stork lived in a state of chronic anxiety…) "Miles of caverns in Stygian darkness…cozy, really…it could be hiding anything. Even…" –long pause, longer than Stork's usual moments of dramatic effect—"a _Snogre_."

"Snogre? Wouldn't think so, dude, "scoffed Finn."They hunted the last of those things down when I was a kid."

Stork leaned into the eyepieces for another long moment. "Apparently they missed one."

Aerrow quickly redirected his gaze and caught his breath. Through the last swirls of the storm he could plainly see what Stork saw—a huge hulking form, four times human size, standing in the mouth of a high mountain cave with something struggling in its fists. Something blue.

"--Take her in, Stork. Team, let's fly." Aerrow headed for the bridge doorway.

"Woohoo! Monster hunting!" beamed Finn as he checked his artillery; Junko bit his lip and Aerrow raised a hand.

"Be careful—just shoot to stun." Below, there was a bright flash as the creature took a shot from Piper's energy lance—good, she wasn't disarmed. "You're right, the Snow Ogres are supposed to be extinct. Maybe this is the last one. Even if they're dangerous, we're not going to be the ones to kill it."

Junko looked relieved and Finn shrugged easily as the bridge door slid open. "Cool with me. Shoot-to-stun takes even better aim than—"

_"Wait!"_

They all turned back in alarm at Stork's cry. The Snogre had raised its huge head as the Condor began descent from surveillance and headed toward its mountain peak, mouth open in a roar they couldn't hear. It glared at the advancing menace, shaking Piper like a toy, evidently forgetting its prey in light of this new threat. Aerrow saw the Merb flinch at the sight.

"I was afraid of this," wailed Stork, "Snogres don't see well, but they're extremely heat-sensitive. Even at this distance it couldn't possibly miss a heat source the size of the Condor—"

"If we go in, won't we distract it from the ship?" asked Aerrow quickly.

"That depends on what it decides to do--"

At that moment Piper took advantage of the beast's inattention to get in another shot, and, face twisted in a bellow of pain, it threw her over the cliff.

For one second none of them moved, and then Stork hauled on the rudder and threw his weight into the wheel, sending the Condor into a fast, shallow dive. Junko was the only one close enough to hear him thinking out loud at tense, high speed: "Gravity minus wind speed, plus dive velocity, rate of climb, factor local terrain, add Wallop—_yeah._ We can do this."

"--add Wallop" was all Junko had to hear; if Stork was gonna need him to do something fast, he was on the spot to do it. The Condor dove into the mountain pass, toward the cliff face, shearing in a sharp turn parallel to it and closing fast. Stork punched the overhead hatch button with one strong toe. They heard Piper's startled shriek falling toward them; the Condor was racing alongside the cliff so close that bare tree branches scraped the hull, and Aerrow said low and warningly, "Stork—"

The Merb, eyes wide, fingers clenched on the wheel in pure concentration, didn't notice him. "Intercept in three, two—"

"Got it!" There was his cue; Junko bounded over to the open hatch--

**"—one."**

--and Piper dropped into his arms, neat as that, staring in disbelief at the Wallop's delighted grin.

Finn whistled in admiration. Stork allowed himself one sigh of relief, then pushed back the rudder and hauled on the wheel. They weren't out of this yet, Aerrow saw; the Condor swung clear of the cliff and nosed upward, then more steeply; there was barely enough time for her to gain altitude to climb out of the rocky pass_. Not good if we save Piper but rip a chunk out of the Condor doing it—but, if there's one pilot on Atmos that could do it—_

There was a triumphant roar, and a huge snowball slammed into the ship, spilling snow through the still-open hatch. _It's celebrating having chased us off_-- the Condor was thrown forward and struggled to right herself. For a second the last peak of the pass reared up jaggedly under them and they held their breath; Stork clenched his teeth and pulled as if lifting the ship by sheer willpower, and the Condor cleared the pass, angling into the grey sky of the nameless terra, safe and sound.

The collective exhale on the bridge was deafening. Stork folded over the wheel and gasped for breath, snow dripping from his hair. Junko set down Piper, who headed straight for him; the pilot raised a hand without lifting his head. "No one has to thank me… it's just my job."

"--Hey." Piper walked up to stand behind him. "You saved my life, got the ship out without a scratch, and because of that, we have these—" she reached back and pulled a fist-sized blue crystal out of her pack, holding it in front of Stork for him to see. "So don't tell me I can't say thank you." She folded her arms around him, leaned in close and hugged him tight, resting her forehead between his shoulderblades. "Thanks, Stork."

The Merb didn't respond, of course, but he didn't panic either; he just stood, breathing, letting her be there, and Aerrow wondered if --just maybe-- there wasn't a reason he'd seemed the most worried of them all…Piper stepped back, gently brushed the rest of the snow off his head, and smiled.

"Way to do your job."

"Piper's right, that was some cool flying," chimed in Junko, beaming as he mopped the deck. Stork coughed in embarrassment, looking a shade greener than usual, and Aerrow decided to tactfully bring things back to business.

"We'd better go back and get your scooter before it gets dark. I don't want to bet on that one being the last Snogre."

Piper looked up from admiring the shimmering aquamarine-blue stone she'd quarried to stare at him. "You left my scooter down there?"

"Well yeah, " needled Finn," thought you might need to make a fast escape from your big shaggy boyfriend—"

"Boyfriend," snorted Piper, "_right." _She stuffed the crystal back into her pack. "Let's go then."

Aerrow glanced at her with just the least amusement, but didn't say a word as they left the bridge.

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_[Edited 8/19 to correct name of Piper's skyride. 100Xthx to YTV for such an informative SHawks website; couldn't work without it._


End file.
